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Last updated: 2026-11-13
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# What is domaining?

Domaining means buying names other people will want, holding them, and safely selling the few that find a buyer. In three minutes, you learn the odds, who does it, and what Unique Domains does and does not do for you.

Start here, 13 min read
Published 2026-11-11, reviewed 2026-11-12.

Someone told you that people register domain names for ten dollars and sell them for thousands. Or you are naming a company, and the .com of your word is held by someone who never built anything on it. You want to know who these holders are and what they want. Either way, it is the same trade, with the same odds and the same rules.

By the end, you can say what a domain investor does and what the odds are, in figures that investors and marketplaces published. You can say where the panels that decide disputes over names draw the line between holding a word and squatting a brand, and why parked names no longer pay. And you know which course is yours, and what each one teaches, in order.

## What you will be able to do

- You can say what a domain investor does, and what each held name costs a year.
- You can give the odds that large holders and marketplaces reported: the share of names sold each year and the median sale.
- You can say where dispute panels draw the line between holding a word and squatting a brand.
- You can explain why ads on a parked name now earn close to nothing.
- You can choose your course and say what each chapter teaches.

## Buy, hold, renew, sell: the trade and its odds

A domain investor buys names that a business may want later. Some of them are registered new, and others are bought from their holders. Every name costs a yearly renewal, whether it sells or not. When a buyer comes, the sale goes through a marketplace or an escrow service, which holds the money until the name has moved.

The odds of a sale are low. Andrew Allemann wrote of having heard sell-through rates of 1% to 3%, reported by large holders that wait for buyers rather than seek them (Domain Name Wire, 6 November 2014). That rate is the share of a portfolio that sells in one year. At a rate of 2%, Allemann worked out, half of a portfolio is still unsold after about 35 years.

A Boston Consulting Group estimate, relayed by Allemann on Domain Name Wire on 14 April 2021, put the names resold in 2020 at 1.25 million, against 27.7 million .com names owned by investors. That implies a rate of 4.5% a year for .com, which is well above what investors achieve, Allemann wrote, perhaps because the study also counted expired names.

Sedo's median sale was $818 in the Global Domain Report 2026, which it publishes with InterNetX (Domain Name Wire, 23 March 2026). Escrow.com's own index put the median price of a domain at $5,369 in the first quarter of 2026 (Domain Name Wire, 29 May 2026). Across the sales we track, the .com median over 12 months is $810.

So a typical sale runs from hundreds to a few thousand dollars, in our reading. The stories are about the rare large ones. On Domain Name Wire on 9 August 2021, Allemann warned against copying only those who made it. Investors have succeeded with many mediocre names, and with a few great ones. Lots of investors failed with each approach.

## Case: Over 750 new names, a couple of sales

- .com names hand-registered in 12 months: more than 750
- New names sold by July 2026: a couple
- Older names posted at wholesale prices: close to 200, then $50 each

On Domain Name Wire on 1 July 2026, Andrew Allemann, who writes the site and invests, described a year of buying. So far, 2026 was Allemann's best investing year. In 12 months, Allemann had hand-registered more than 750 .com names, which means registering them new, while buying fewer expired names as their prices climbed.

A couple of the new names had already sold. Those sales were effectively covering, in Allemann's words, the first-year registration of the whole batch. The week before, Allemann had posted close to 200 older names at wholesale prices. The names that remained were then priced at $50 each.

The arithmetic is ours. A couple of sales paid for the first year of some 750 names. Then each name renews at its registrar, the company that sells it. Across the registrars we price, the median .com renewal is $13.40, due each year on every name still held. Allemann's own reason for the cheap sale was fit: a name that no longer fits the plan is let go.

The lesson of this one year comes in three parts: many cheap names, a few sales that pay for them, and older names let go when they no longer fit.

Source: Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "How I’m adapting my domain investing", 2026-07-01, https://domainnamewire.com/2026/07/01/how-im-adapting-my-domain-investing/

## Ask a seller of names for their own figures

To anyone selling you names or a course on domain investing, before you pay.

> Hello [first name],
>
> Before I decide, could you share your own figures for the last full year?
>
> 1. How many names you held at the start of that year, and how many of them sold.
>
> 2. The median price of those sales, and how many went to companies that used the name.
>
> 3. What you paid in renewals that year.
>
> Thank you,
>
> [your name]

Sales quoted without the number of names the seller held are a story, not a rate.

## Investor or squatter: where panels draw the line

A founder who finds the word taken may call its holder a squatter. Elliot Silver, an investor who writes, noted that many people see domain investors as middlemen between a founder and the exact name, and that the animosity can affect negotiations (DomainInvesting, 27 April 2026).

Critics have said so in print. On Domain Name Wire on 3 March 2010, Allemann relayed an interview with an author of a report on typosquatting, which means registering misspelled brand names. The author, who was also co-counsel in a typosquatting lawsuit, said that domainers add little genuine value and make names costlier for entrepreneurs.

WIPO's Overview 3.0 sums up panel views on the UDRP, the procedure a trademark owner uses against a name registered to abuse its mark. It says panels have generally accepted that holding dictionary words, acronyms or common phrases, usually for resale, can be bona fide, meaning in good faith, when no trademark is targeted. Registering to resell, even for profit, would generally not by itself show bad faith.

Panels weigh dates too. Where a name was registered or bought before the complainant had trademark rights, they will not normally find bad faith. In certain limited circumstances they have, when a name was registered to capitalize on rights just forming, around a merger announcement, a product launch or a trademark filing. Panels have held that bulk buyers and registrants have a duty to avoid names that abuse a trademark.

Trademark owners filed a record 6,192 cases with WIPO in 2023, under the UDRP and national variations. WIPO said on 24 January 2024 that transfer of the name to the trademark owner remained the dominant outcome, and that cases increasingly tackled fraud and phishing. None of this says how a claim on your own name would end. For that, take your case to a lawyer.

## Why parking no longer pays for a name

Parking means pointing a held name at a page of ads that pay its holder per click. It has been shrinking for years. In a Domain Name Wire survey of more than 1,000 respondents, reported on 27 February 2012, 57% earned under $10 per thousand visitors. In 2007, before the parking bubble burst, about a third earned that little.

Then the advertisers left. Parking revenue had dwindled to next to nothing for most domain owners, Allemann wrote on 4 September 2024. In February 2025, Google said it would opt all existing advertisers out of showing ads on parked domains. The last batch was opted out in September.

In Allemann's review of the year, published on 31 December 2025, that final purge brought parking revenue down to pennies on the dollar. In our reading, a parked page earns close to nothing toward its renewal.

## Case: Sedo's quarterly revenue fell 66% in a year

- Revenue, third quarter of 2024: €80.2 million
- Revenue, third quarter of 2025: €27.5 million
- Change in a year: down 66%, about €52.7 million
- First half of 2025: up 73%

Andrew Allemann reported on Sedo's third quarter, using the company's own data (Domain Name Wire, 14 November 2025). Sedo is a marketplace where names are listed and parked. Its third-quarter revenue fell 66% in a year, from €80.2 million in 2024 to €27.5 million in 2025. Yet in the first half of 2025, revenue had grown 73%.

The cause, in Allemann's reading, was Google winding down AdSense for Domains, its ads for parked pages. Sedo's traffic business relied on them, and so did millions of names parked there. Google opted its last batch of advertisers out that quarter, and changed the rules of another ad product. Some of the changes came partway through the quarter, so the business had likely worsened since.

The arithmetic goes like this: €27.5 million is about 34% of €80.2 million, so about €52.7 million of a quarter's revenue was gone. Sedo nearly broke even on one measure of earnings, Allemann wrote, thanks in part to its stable domain aftermarket business, which is the sale of names.

The lesson is that the ads on parked pages came from one company, and they were switched off in 2025. Sedo's sales of names held steady. Our reading is to price a held name by what it may sell for, and to count parking at zero.

Source: Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "Sedo’s revenue fell 66% in Q3 as Google changes hit", 2025-11-14, https://domainnamewire.com/2025/11/14/sedos-revenue-fell-66-in-q3-as-google-changes-hit/

## The founder course: one name, in order

"Name your company" is for a founder choosing the one name a company will run on. It follows that decision in the order it happens, and each chapter ends with an exercise in Unique Domains. The trademark chapters of both courses come later.

1. "Why the .com you want is already taken": who registered your word before you, and when.
2. "Know which of three prices you are quoted": a registration, a premium or a holder's asking price.
3. "Start on a short word, buy the .com later": which ending to build on now, and which day to buy the .com.
4. "Read the renewal price before the first-year price": what a name costs over five years.
5. "Check social handles before the name is final": how much a taken handle should count in your choice.
6. "Register and secure your name in ten minutes": the settings that keep the name yours.
7. "Choose a registrar you can leave without trouble": its renewal price, and how easily you can leave.
8. "How to buy a name someone already owns": your top price, and your first message to the holder.
9. "How to pay for a name in instalments": a plan's total, and what a missed payment costs.
10. "Which three endings to register for your name": the .com, the one you build on, your market's country code.
11. "Which spelling variants to register, and which to skip": the few variants worth registering.

## The investor course: names to resell, in order

"Buy names that sell" is for anyone buying names to sell them again. It follows a name from its estimate to the money: what to pay, what holding it costs, how to buy it as it expires, and how to sell it. A founder buying a held name finds the holder's side here.

1. "Est. value is an estimate, not a promise": what the figure is, and how to read the sales beside it.
2. "Never bid above a name's Est. value": one maximum bid, set before the auction opens.
3. "Pick names that sell, not a large est. profit": why the chance of a sale comes first.
4. "Renewals are the real cost of names you hold": a written rule for renewing a name or dropping it.
5. "Read a name's ownership history before you buy": checking for a theft, an earlier company's use of the name or a spam past.
6. "Read an ending's rules before you hold names there": who may hold a name there, and whether it may be resold.
7. "Bid in the registrar's auction before the drop": where expired names sell first.
8. "A backorder does not guarantee you the name": what your order buys you when the name is released.
9. "List your names where buyers already search": listing on the marketplaces at one fixed price.
10. "Price your name with the buyer's renewal in mind": what your name costs the buyer over five years.
11. "How you answer a buyer decides the sale": your reply, your lowest price and one follow-up.
12. "How to close a domain deal safely through escrow": how escrow works, how the name is delivered, and which scams to refuse.

## What Unique Domains does, and does not do

On the Founder plan, Browse shows a word's open and listed names on the endings we track, with their status and price. A row opens the name's drawer, which shows its five-year cost, Est. value and Similar sales. You can run the full analysis, which is counted once against your month, Watch a name and read Business Ideas.

The Investor plan adds WHOIS and the availability checker in Product, Registrars, Auctions, Sales, Appraise, Watchlists, Radars and Trending Domains. On the website, without an account, WHOIS and the availability checker give one live lookup a day each. Registrars shows 40 endings a day with one ending lookup, and the daily editions show five open names.

We register nothing, bid nothing, list nothing and park nothing. We hold no money and keep no portfolio of the names you own. Register, Buy, Bid and Backorder each hand you to the registrar or the site selling the name. The evidence is ours. The decision and the money stay yours.

## The rule

Domaining is buying names that another business will want, paying each name's renewal, and selling the few that find a buyer. Price each name by setting its renewals against the small chance of a sale each year. Register a word before anyone builds a brand on it, and never register a brand someone already has.

## Before your first name

- Pick your course: one name to build on, or names to resell.
- Write down the yearly renewal bill for everything you plan to hold.
- Read the count and the median of past sales before you buy any name.
- Expect one to three sales a year for every hundred names you hold, the rates of large holders that Allemann wrote of in 2014.
- Skip any word that a company, a product or a person already trades under.
- Read the ending's rules on who may hold a name and resell it.
- Count parking income at zero, and plan for the sale.
- Ask anyone selling you names or advice for their own figures.
- Close every deal through a marketplace or an escrow service.
- Take a dispute or a demand to a lawyer before you answer it.

## Try it in Browse

1. Open Browse and type one word, with no ending. Its open and listed names appear, mixed with names of related words. Write down the status of three of them. A missing ending may be held or outside the catalog.
2. In the table view, on a row that reads For sale, hover the Price column. Write down Price now and Sold by. This is what a holder is asking.
3. Open the row. Under Price and cost, write down Year 1, Renewal and Five years. Here, Five years is the asking price plus four renewals.
4. Under Value, write down Est. value, which is one model's estimate, and Similar sales with its count and its median.
5. Set Five years beside the median. That puts your five-year cost against what names like it sold for.

Do this in Unique Domains: Open Browse. The public page: https://unique.domains/domains

## Sources

- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "BuyDomains and the economics of large domain portfolios", 2014-11-06, https://domainnamewire.com/2014/11/06/buydomains-and-the-economics-of-large-domain-portfolios/
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "Sizing the domain name aftermarket", 2021-04-14, https://domainnamewire.com/2021/04/14/sizing-the-domain-name-aftermarket/
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "New report contains interesting aftermarket domain name data", 2026-03-23, https://domainnamewire.com/2026/03/23/new-report-contains-interesting-aftermarket-domain-name-data/
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "Escrow.com: .Com hits record high, .ai settles", 2026-05-29, https://domainnamewire.com/2026/05/29/escrow-com-com-hits-record-high-ai-settles/
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "Survivorship bias in the domain business", 2021-08-09, https://domainnamewire.com/2021/08/09/survivorship-bias-in-the-domain-business/
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "How I’m adapting my domain investing", 2026-07-01, https://domainnamewire.com/2026/07/01/how-im-adapting-my-domain-investing/
- Elliot Silver, DomainInvesting, "Domain Investors Aren’t Well-Liked", 2026-04-27, https://domaininvesting.com/domain-investors-arent-well-liked/
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "Edelman: Domainers Cause Harm, Add Little Value", 2010-03-03, https://domainnamewire.com/2010/03/03/edelman-domainers-cause-harm-add-little-value/
- WIPO, "WIPO Overview of WIPO Panel Views on Selected UDRP Questions, Third Edition, ("WIPO Jurisprudential Overview 3.0")", 2017-05, https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/overview3.0/
- WIPO, "Record Number of Domain Name Cases filed with WIPO in 2023", 2024-01-24, https://www.wipo.int/en/web/amc/w/news-domain-name-disputes/2024/news_0001
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "Domain parking revenue still dropping, less than $10 RPM", 2012-02-27, https://domainnamewire.com/2012/02/27/domain-parking-survey/
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "Google just dealt another blow to domain name parking", 2024-09-04, https://domainnamewire.com/2024/09/04/google-just-dealt-another-blow-to-domain-name-parking/
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "2025 in Review: The death of AdSense for Domains", 2025-12-31, https://domainnamewire.com/2025/12/31/2025-in-review-the-death-of-adsense-for-domains/
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "Sedo’s revenue fell 66% in Q3 as Google changes hit", 2025-11-14, https://domainnamewire.com/2025/11/14/sedos-revenue-fell-66-in-q3-as-google-changes-hit/

This course explains how the trade works. It is not legal or financial advice.

## Related pages

- Explore the public one-word Domains Database: https://unique.domains/domains
- See how founders go from a search to a shortlist: https://unique.domains/solutions/founders
- Read every domain word in plain English: https://unique.domains/glossary